City and County of Denver v. Denver Union Water Co Denver Union Water Co v. City and County of Denver

• Decision Date: 04 March 1918
• Docket Number: 295,Nos. 294,s. 294
• Parties: CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER et al. v. DENVER UNION WATER CO. DENVER UNION WATER CO. v. CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

246 U.S. 178

38 S.Ct. 278

62 L.Ed. 649

CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER et al.

v DENVER UNION WATER CO.

DENVER UNION WATER CO.

v. CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER et al.

Nos. 294, 295.

Argued Oct. 3 and 4, 1917.

Decided March 4, 1918.

[Syllabus from pages 178-179 intentionally omitted] Messrs. James A. Marsh, Norton Montgomery, and Edward C. Stimson, all of Denver, Colo., for city and county of Denver.

Messrs. Clayton C. Dorsey and Gerald Hughes, both of Denver, Colo., for Denver Union Water Co.

Mr. Justice PITNEY delivered the opinion of the Court.

We have here an appeal and a cross-appeal from a final decree made in a suit in equity brought by the Denver Union Water Company against the city and county of Denver and the members of its council and other public officials, for the purpose of restraining the enforcement of an ordinance passed March 3, 1914, fixing the rates for water perm tted to be charged thereafter by the company, upon the ground that they did not afford a fair and reasonable compensation, based upon the value of the property of complainant necessarily used in the service, and hence amounted to a taking of private property without due process of law within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The city and county of Denver is a municipal corporation having broad powers of self-government, including the power on the part of five per cent. of the electors to initiate an ordinance by petition. For convenience it will be referred to as the city.

An answer having been filed, putting the cause at issue, the District Court, by consent of parties, appointed a special master, 'with all of the powers conferred upon the master under the rules of practice for the courts of equity of the United States, and subject to the further orders of this court, * * * for the purpose of taking all testimony in the suit and reporting to the court said testimony, his findings of fact and such conclusions of law as he may deem essential to the proper advisement of the court.' After a full hearing he made an elaborate report, sustaining complainant's main contention. The city and the Public Utilities Commission, defendants, filed numerous exceptions to his findings and conclusions, raising questions respecting certain elements that entered into his valuation of complainant's plant. Complainant, while declaring that it did not consent to a review of the report so far as it was conclusive under the order of reference, filed exceptions, subject to such ruling as the court might make respecting its reviewability. Upon these exceptions the cause came on to be heard, whereupon the court, being of the opinion that under the terms of the order appointing the special master his findings of fact were not open for its consideration, and that no material questions of law were raised that could be considered without an examination of the facts, ordered that the exceptions of both parties be struck out, confirmed the master's report, and passed a final decree in favor of complainant in accordance with his findings. Defendants appealed to this court, presenting assignments of error based upon the overruling by the District Court of their exceptions to the master's report. Complainant filed a cross-appeal presenting assignments of error for consideration only in the event that defendants' assignments of error, or some of them, should be sustained.

In our opinion, the District Court erred in declining to pass upon the questions raised by the exceptions. Although no opinion was filed, the ruling appears to have been based upon the theory that because the order of reference was made by consent of parties, the conclusions of the master were not open to question. Kimberly v. Arms, 129 U. S. 512, 524, 9 Sup. Ct. 355, 32 L. Ed. 764, and Davis v. Schwartz, 155 U. S. 631, 633, 636, 15 Sup. Ct. 237, 39 L. Ed. 289, are cited in support, but they are distinguishable. In the former case, the reference, made by consent of the parties, authorized the master to hear the evidence and decide all the issues between them, and it was because of this that the court held the findings were not merely advisory, as in the ordinary case, but were to be taken as presumptively correct, 'subject, indeed, to be reviewed under the reservation contained in the consent and order of the court, when there has been manifest error in the consideration given to the evidence, or in the application of the law, but not otherwise,' and that the findings ought to have been treated as 'so far correct and binding as not to be disturbed unless clearly in conflict with the weight of the evidence upon which they were made.' Davis v. Schwartz is to the same effect. In the present case, the consent given to the order of reference was conditioned by the terms of the order itself, which, as we have seen, limited the functions of the master to the taking of testimony and reporting it to the court together with his findings of fact and conclusions of law for the advisement of the court.

The error of procedure, however, does not necessitate sending the case back to the District Court. The issues were fully heard before the master, all proffered evidence was admitted, the exceptions taken to his findings raise no serious questions of fact, we have before us in the record the evidence and all other materials necessary for judgment, and will simply proceed to do what the District Court ought to have done, namely, consider the report and pass upon the exceptions, and make such decree as is equitable in the premises.

It was admitted before the master, and is not here controverted, that the company is the sole owner of the waterworks, plant, and system in question, including lands, diversion works, reservoirs, filters, conduits, distribution works, and other apparatus, and is serving the city and its inhabitants with water, that no other waterworks or system of distribution exists in the city, and that although the city has power to construct a system of its own (subject to a limit of cost that will be mentioned be- low), it has not commenced to do so. It was, however, contended by defendants, in the answer and upon the hearing before the master and the contention is here renewed—that as to such of the company's water diversion rights as had been acquired by it or its predecessors by original appropriation and user (as distinguished from those acquired by purchase) the right to the water itself was not the property of the company but of the city; and this upon the theory that, under the law of appropriation as it obtains in Colorado, the right of diversion belonged to those for whose use and benefit the appropriation was made, the company being entitled to compensation only for its services as carrier in distributing the water by means of the physical system owned by it.

The report of the special master shows, what is not disputed, that his investigation of the matters referred to him was most painstaking and thorough. In estimating the value of the company's property, he adopted the following method, with the practical consent of the parties: Lands and water rights were appraised at their present market values; estimates of the cost of reproducing the structures were made, and, from this cost, allowance for accrued depreciation was deducted so as to determine the reasonable value of the structures in their present condition; and in estimating the cost of reproduction it was assumed that the work would be done under contract after fair competitive bidding, and with reasonable costs for engineering and superintendence in addition to the contract cost. Separate consideration was given to the various tracts of land owned by the company, and the various water rights, diversion works, reservoirs, conduits, distribution pipes, personal property, and other items constituting the plant. He found the plant to be in excellent condition, supplying water abundantly in excess of the needs of the community and under a proper pressure, and found its entire value to be $13,415,899, in which only elements seriously questioned by the city were: (a) The disputed water diversion rights, which he held to be the property of the company and valued at $1,998,117; and (b) an item of $800,000 for 'going concern' value, allowed by the master upon the ground that the company had 'an assembled and established plant doing business and earning money,' according to the principle laid down by this court in Des Moines Gas Co. v. City of Des Moines, 238 U. S. 153, 165, 35 Sup. Ct. 811, 59 L. Ed. 1244. He made no allowance for franchise value or for any permanent right to maintain the waterworks in the streets of the city; but he did value the plant as capable of use and actually in use in the public service, and found that a new plant capable of serving the public with like efficiency could not be built for $13,415,899—a finding to which no exception was taken. The master further found that the net earnings of the company under the ordinance of 1914, after making proper allowances for operating expenses, taxes, and depreciation, would be $488,820, or only 3.64 per cent. of the reasonable value of the plant; while the prevailing rate of interest for secured loans on business and residence properties in Denver was about 6 per cent., with higher rates for loans less adequately secured.

Defendants now insist that the company is occupying the streets and performing its service merely at sufference; that its rights arose solely out of a franchise ordinance adopted in 1890 and which expired in 1910; and that the city now has the right to exclude the company from its streets, and hence the right to fix the terms upon which it shall continue to do business, and that the value to the company of the property under these circumstances is what it would bring for some other use in case the city should build its own plant—in other words, as to a large part of the property, 'junk value.' Of course, it is a necessary corollary that the...